”The poor man’s university” – om bibliotek, läsning och bokbussar på Jamaica

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The aim of this Master’s Thesis is to examine the importance of literacy and reading in a country like Jamaica. What role do public libraries and bookmobiles play in promoting literacy, and how does this work correspond with the UNESCO public library manifesto? To answer this, interviews were conducted with nine Jamaican librarians, and study visits were made to libraries and bookmobiles. In addition, development plans, policy and other relevant documents were analyzed. The themes that emerged from the interviews and the different development plans were compared. These themes and the observations from the study visits were analyzed from the perspective of Amartya Sen’s theories on development as freedom, in which greater freedom for people is seen both as the main goal of development and the most important means of development. The conclusions to be drawn from this are that both librarians and government consider literacy and information to be essential to development and economic growth in Jamaica. It is clear that libraries and bookmobiles have contributed to a more literate society and play an active part in the country’s educational system. However, the informal nature of this contribution makes it difficult to estimate its actual extent. The activities of the public library service in Jamaica correspond very well with the...